Mission Statement Possible: What Do International Schools' Mission Statements Reveal about Their Cosmopolitan Education Tendencies?

Hayden, Matthew J.

Online Submission, M.A. Thesis, Columbia University

This research was undertaken to determine to what extent international schools saw themselves as cosmopolitan educators, deliberate or not. The mission statements of sixty-seven self-identified international schools were analyzed to measure the extent to which these schools articulated purposes that were consistent with dominant typologies and characteristics of cosmopolitanism, and were then compared with traditional themes of education found in these statements as well. The data shows that while international schools show a dominant predilection toward cognitive and academic development, they also contain a significant number of cosmopolitan characteristics and an orientation toward the development of attitudes and emotional development that aid in intercultural understanding and cosmopolitan ways of being. These cosmopolitan characteristics appear to be embedded in both traditional educational practices as well as in the general educational ethos of international schools. Three appendixes are included: (1) Orientations and Characteristics Frequencies and Percentages; (2) Frequencies of Characteristics per Mission Statement; and (3) Mission Statement Word Counts. (Contains 7 tables.)